Stephen Brusk on Books and Food
Esteemed and justly famed author Stephen Brust sums up adroitly the cost-benefit ratios of lightweight versus heavyweight books.
See here: http://skzbrust.livejournal.com/15979.html
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I spent a delightful morning hanging out with Neil Gaiman, and, as usual, we talked about Stuff. If the following makes you go, “Splendid! Brilliant! Insightful!” then Neil gets the credit, because it was his metaphor. On the other hand, if it makes you go, “Lame! Stupid! Strained!” then blame me, because I stretched it to the breaking point.
Books can be broken down into four classes: popcorn, steak, caviar, and celery.
Popcorn is pretty obvious. Anyone here enjoy The Destroyer novels by Sapir and Murphy as much as me? gobble gobble gobble Steak is the stuff you can bite into, chew, swallow, and gain sustenance from. Some of us use spices on our steak, or do interesting things with it by stir-frying it, adding ginger and various vegetables, and so on. In my case, paprika. But at the end of the day, it is steak. Niel writes particularly good steak–range fed, the spicing is different every time, always delectable, and some of it obviously comes from places where cattle are not indigenous, making you go, “Wow. How did they ever think of doing that?” as you go for the next bite.
Gene Wolfe and John M. “Mike” Ford write caviar. It is a lot of work to get to. You have to open the can, you have to make sure the refrigeration is exactlyperfect. You have to have the right atmosphere, and you have to approach it with the proper reverence if you’re going to get anything out of the experience. But if you do, my god, is it worth it!
Celery is that stuff you have to chew and chew and chew and, by the time you’re done, you’ve gotten even less nutritional value from than the popcorn. I won’t name any names.
Some turn up their noses at popcorn. Well, that’s okay. Just don’t bring ’em to a ball game. Most of us like steak, in one form or another. Some object to caviar because they have just never got into the glories of eating–into food that is worth the work. For them, the payoff just isn’t there.
The interesting thing, to me, is that there really are people out there who like the celery because it is so hard to chew, and the fact that there’s nothing of substance there doesn’t bother them.
Okay, so, probably not as deep as I’m making it sound. But fun to think about.
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Mr. Brust underestimates the clarity of his insight, which I think positively pellucid. We judge popcorn books by popcorn standards, steak books by steak. Those rare books which are nectar. and ambrosia, the food of the goods, are not judged by how they please our palate or nourish our needs, but how they grant immortality to poet and the poet’s age alike. Were it not for the genius of the Golden Age of Pericles, we would think no more of Fifth Century Athens than we think of Eighth Century Antioch.
I agree with him about the one John Ford book I read, DRAGON IN WAITING.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
